Crammed into this year’s field of 10 best picture Oscar nominees are British aristocrats, Volvo-driving Los Angeles lesbians, a flock of swans, a gaggle of Harvard computer geeks, clans of Massachusetts fighters and Missouri meth dealers, as well as 19th-century bounty hunters, dream detectives and animated toys. It’s a fairly diverse selection in terms of genre, topic, sensibility, style and ambition. But it’s also more racially homogenous — more white — than the 10 films that were up for best picture in 1940, when Hattie McDaniel became the first black American to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in “Gone With the Wind.” In view of recent history the whiteness of the 2011 Academy Awards is a little blinding.

... But it was possible, over much of the past decade, to believe that a few of the old demons of suspicion and exclusion might finally be laid to rest. Are the coming Oscars an anomaly, or an unsettling sign of the times?...

What happened? Is 2010 an exception to a general rule of growing diversity? Or has Hollywood, a supposed bastion of liberalism so eager in 2008 to help Mr. Obama make it to the White House, slid back into its old, timid ways? Can it be that the president’s status as the most visible and powerful African-American man in the world has inaugurated a new era of racial confusion — or perhaps a crisis in representation?

Dargis and Scott are absolutely right. It's discrimination, that's what it is, racism of the most invidious kind. You see, it's not that white Academy members didn't vote for deserving blacks for Oscars this year. No, the white bigotry was much more profound: there weren't deserving blacks in 2010 (which, by definition, must be the fault of whites). That Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman chose to appear in big budget popcorn movies in 2010 rather than in lower budget prestige films, and that Jamie Foxx's performance in the Oscar-bait The Soloist was forgettable just proves that racism is rampant.

Steps must be taken. Let's think about the ten Best Picture nominees:

How hard would it have been for Hollywood to cast an African American in The King's Speech? Why did Helena Bonham-Carter get to play the Queen of England when Tyler Perry was available?

Why wasn't a single black actor even considered for the role of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network?

Why did that hillbilly girl in Winter's Bone wander around the Ozarks asking her white trash kinfolk where her pa was when she could have gone to a shaven-headed black computer hacker genius and had him locate her father using high tech satellite imagery? That would have been awesome.

Why did Hollywood cast Christian Bale as Mark Wahlberg's brother in The Fighter when they could have cast Diddy? Shouldn't Morgan Freeman have played a wise janitor at their boxing gym?

How come Natalie Portman's mom in The Black Swan wasn't played by Mo'Nique? In the The Kids Are All Right, wouldn't it have subverted stereotypes about heritability if the biological daughter of Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo had been played not by Mia Waskiowska but by that 300 pound black girl from Precious?

Why did Toy Story III bring back Tim Allen to voice Buzz Lightyear when they could have substituted Chris Tucker? Why wasn't that real life mountain climber who cuts his own arm off in 127 Hours played by Ice Cube? Why, when Spike Lee has time on his hands, did Hollywood let Christopher Nolan write and direct Inception?

And don't get me started on Rooster Cogburn. Instead of Jeff Bridges, Hollywood could have hired N!xau, that little tongue-clicking San from The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Finally, why, after all these years, are the Coen Brothers still segregated? When are they going to hire a black Coen?

(For their next investigative report, Dargis and Scott should expose an even bigger racial scandal: Not one Oscar nomination went to Machete!)

Jamie Foxx's role in The Soloist as a homeless musical genius was uniformly assumed to be an Oscar sure-thing ... until The Soloist was released, at which point everybody forgot about the existence of the movie.

I just finished watching The Wrestler. I can see Denzel or Will Smith doing that role, but it really wouldn't have seemed authentic. I'm not trying to make any deeper point about the topic at hand, btw.

(ps. Why, in all the reviews of The Wrestler did no one point out that the the main character was so similar to The Dog The Bounty Hunter.)

Ha, is that type still around? Haven't bothered watching most movies since they started sucking, but last time I remember that was the safe-cracker from Die Hard and the inventor of the Terminator chip from T2.

What is Spike Lee up to these days anyway? He came out with a lot of interesting stuff back in the day (Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Mo Betta Blues), but not much memorable after that. Obama, by the way, took Michelle to see Do the Right Thing, for their first date.

Part of Spike Lee's problem is that he doesn't have much besides the race angle. With racial tensions at a much lower point than the were in the 1980s/early 1990s, Lee is less relevant as a film maker. I would also say that Lee's continual dissing of the Jewish-American population (anyone see Mo Betta Blues?) probably doesn't endear him to too many entertainment execs either.

Watch the race rant scene from Do the Right Thing. You guys will love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOxOR3x8FBQ

Then compare it to the new race rant that Spike Lee made for 25th Hour.

Well the interesting thing is that the type of black movies that appeals to black people are considered trite and saccharine to the Jews and whites who vote for the Oscars. We see no Tyler Perry movie in the Oscars for the same reason we don't see Christian backed movies in the Oscar, they're just not part of their consideration.

There are what - about 40 million African-Americans? That's more than most European countries. Out of that population a high quality black-themed movie can't be produced? (It wouldn't even have to be all that awesome to get an Oscar nod.)

Of course, the same could be said about every other industry in America, too. If there's discrimination, do it yourself and take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity. Happened with music in the fifties - why not with movies, or banking for that matter?

regarding the queen of England as a black... well the BBC had a Robin Hood series with a black Friar Tuck, one who knew an oriental martial art at that. Then when it was canceled for lack of interest they said 'see no one likes this outdated rubbish, more multiculti programming is what's needed'.

Also wasn't bill skyke's wife in a recent production portrayed by a mullato?

As Hollywood has become so infected with SWPL liberalism, I am inclined to wonder why they haven't gone ahead with another 'great idea' they use with their children- giving an award to everybody for something. Hurray! Everybody is a winner!

but your response misrepresents what they are saying: they're saying that like no organic germ of a role was written with the intention of this person being played by an african-american

A lot has to do with the paucity of possible source material. The Color Purple has already been made into a movie. Precious has been made into a movie. The last movie that I can recall that was based on a novel written by a black man was Devil in a Blue Dress back in the mid 90's. There just aren't many quality black writers.

That's important because most writers write about what they know. Daniel Woodrell (Winter's Bone) and Charles Portis (True Grit) wrote about people from the Ozarks because that's where they are from. Aaron Sorkin wrote about a highly intelligent, insecure Jew because that's what he is.

"Why did that hillbilly girl in Winter's Bone wander around the Ozarks asking her white trash kinfolk where her pa was when she could have gone to a shaven-headed black computer hacker genius and had him locate her father using high tech satellite imagery?"

Hahaha... your sense of humor has really been coming out lately in your posts. Nice.

I have claimed that this is the year when the movie theaters close. Before 1950 all studio revenues came from box office receipts. In those days the studios also owned all the theaters. That hasn't been true for some time now but the theatrical release is now not a revenue generator so much as it is a part of the marketing campaign for a film that will make most of its money in a home venue.

The movement from theatrical to home viewing has been proceeding apace for decades. I think the final phase takes place more quickly - even precipitously. I expect hundreds of movie theaters to close this year.

If I'm right, the black movie star will suffer. In the last few years the young blacks who went to the theaters induced the studios to cast blacks in the film leads. But almost no black actors have major roles in TV adventure series or reality shows. White people don't seem to want to see black faces in their living room.

Consider the faces on "Mythbusters". They have a Japanese regular who every episode says, "I'll build a robot". That line doesn't work as well coming from a black. There once was a black guy on "Law and Order" but I don't think there ever was one on any of the hundreds of CSI spin-offs.

The only black continuing character I can think of is Coby Bell on "Burn Notice". I thought he was white but on doing my research for this comment, I discovered that some people think he's black. If so he's the first black spy since Bill Cosby.

Blacks on TV are ghettoized. They are in their own shows and on their own networks. They mix freely with whites on movie screens but this is the year that movies become more like TV.

My wife and I see few movies, don't subscribe to premium channels, never have used NetFlix or whatever and don't subscribe to our local Newspaper so we don't know what is showing at our local multiplexes. In short we are out of the loop. My wife has a few DVDs that we watch each year like Darby O'Gill, Waking Ned Devine, Trapped in Paradise, Christmas Story, etc.

Last week we were gifted the viewing of a recent movie called the Bounty Hunter starring Brad Pitt's original squeeze and King Leonidas from The 300 [ Never saw that comedic rendition because if one wants to enjoy The Battle of Thermopylae one can do no better than to read Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire ].

In the Bounty Hunter blacks were cast in two pivotal roles: 1) The Judge of course was a black and of course a middle aged female as well so it was a twofer, and 2) The two faced, black best friend but corrupt cop who of course turns out to be an actual hero. Why no Oscar nominations here for Best Supporting Role as a Black cliché male and female?

Such dreck of a movie acts as a booster to cause me to avoid movies all the more and read select books for pleasure. Yes, I am inoculated more and more against Hollywood's propaganda.

Isn't Hollywood anti-goyite since nearly all the moguls are Jewish? Where is the black mogul of Hollywood? Or even a white gentile mogul. Oh yeah, there is Lucas. He must one among 20 moguls who are mostly Jewish. Aint that fair?

How many conservatives got nominated this year? And aren't Jews kinda overrepresented in the media? Maybe before the Jewish media whines about the Oscars, it should fire some Jews and hire some goyim to make things more socially just and inclusive. And the media seems to have lots of anti-Muslim voices but very few anti-Jewish voices. Let's balance things out by firing some anti-Muslim people and hiring some anti-Jewish people. But given what happened to Rick Sanchez, not likely in the near future.

And I want more Asians in the NBA and more non-gay conservatives in fashion. Racism, I say!

As dysgenic fertility changes the composition of the black community of the US, the taste in movies changes. The movies demanded by black audiences are diverging from the ones demanded by white audiences.

Example, Tyler Perry. do any whites watch his movies?

I am over simplifying here, but a good general rule is that women born with a high IQ refuse to have many children unless they are raised to be religious. That is to say, if you observe a women anywhere in the world with a lot of children, chances are she was either raised religious or she was born without a high IQ. This is a universal constant, across almost all modern societies I know of. For example, high IQ non religious black women in the US actually have on average fewer than one child over the course of a lifetime. Non religious high IQ women in Spain and Italy have on average either zero or one child. Even in Iran and Turkey, nominally "muslim" countries the women that are not religious that have high IQs tend to have one child while the women who are either low IQ or religious have larger numbers of children.If you look at the statistics, what you see is that the USA is blessed with just about the most religious population of whites in the entire world. Mormons and evangelical Christians are just two examples of religious whites, there are other religious white groups in the US. Religion is the only thing in the world that motivates high IQ young women to have lots of kids. So the trajectory for the US is an increasing IQ among the white population as the white population becomes more and more religious over the next few generations. At the same time, Japan and China are essentially lacking in religious feeling. There is literally nothing that the government or society can do in those countries in order to persuade the high IQ women to have children. Those two countries face severe dysgenic fertility trends.The country where this is most advanced is Singapore. In Singapore the government has been terrified of dysgenic fertility for a number of years and has spent a huge ammt of money to try to persuade the high IQ women in Singapore to have children. Absolutely none of these programs has worked.In fact, Singapore now has one of the most dysgenic breeding patterns in the world. Malays, who have genetically low IQs have a total fertility rate of about 2 per women and Chinese, who have a genetically high IQ have a total fertility rate of approximately 1 per women. If you further break out the high IQ Chinese women vs low IQ Chinese women you see that high IQ chinese women have a fertility rate of only .6 per women. If you do the math you see that numbers like this lead to a very rapid reduction in average IQ of a society. America is blessed with religious groups like the evangelicals and Mormons that actually persuade high IQ young women to have large numbers of children. To my knowledge there is nothing like this anywhere else in the world. If you extrapolate out, you see an increasingly religious white population of the USA which is able to avoid a rapid reduction in IQ while growing in number each generation.You also see the rest of the world following Singapore - voluntary extinction for the high IQ people. Indeed, this has happened before. In ancient Rome, the high IQ families gave up on the religion, religious observance fell, the high IQ women refused to have children, and the high IQ families nearly all died out. The pattern was that high IQ families willed themselves in to extinction. The crucial measure of a society is can that society persuade high IQ women to reproduce? By that measure ancient Rome failed and as a result was destroyed. By that measure modern day Japan and Singapore have been proven as failures. So far at least the modern day USA is the best success that I know of in the entire civilized world.

Did Jesse Jackson start this trend about Oscar being racist? The real irony is that Hollywood is run by liberal Jews(who profess to love, love, love blacks and especially Obama), and so is the NY Times. So, why are they blaming the rest of us or white people in general as to why blacks are under-represented in the Oscar game this year? They should be blaming themselves.

And this extends to rich white/Jewish liberals in general. They use gentric cleaning to drive underclass blacks out of fancy parts of the cities, but then accuse OTHER white people of 'racism'. You see all these liberal Jews sending their kids to exclusive schools, living in white suburbs, or in penthouses in Manhattan. They rub shoulders only with token well-heeled blacks like Obama while pulling all sorts of political and economic tricks to seperate themselves from most blacks. These same people accuse poor whites of 'racism'.

Jews have a simple rule. When they do something deemed as 'good', they take the credit as 'Jews'. When they do something deemed as 'bad', they blame it on 'whites'. Since Jews who do 'bad' stuff are designated as 'whites', the blame really falls on 95% of whites who are NOT Jewish.

Redneck bigots don't control Hollywood. Hollywood is controlled by Jews. This so-called liberal Hollywood makes hate-movies against Muslims(300, Iron Man, Kingdom, the Terrorist, etc), hate movies agaisnt Asians(Rising Sun, remake of Red Dawn),and hate movies against whites(Machete and tons of others). Who are liberal Jews to be lecturing to us about morals?

Ha, is that type still around? Haven't bothered watching most movies since they started sucking, but last time I remember that was the safe-cracker from Die Hard and the inventor of the Terminator chip from T2.

It is hard to avoid laughing at the endless complaining from the leadership of the African American Community.

I frequently find myself thinking that the two groups that complain the most here on the HBD blog-o-sphere are the African Americans and the white survivalists.

Think about it, the White Survivalists that incessantly complain about how unpopular their views are in the USA, how it is impossible for White Survivalists to win elective office have the opportunity to move to any number of nearly all white countries, but instead of moving they stay here and complain.

Steve, I call your attention to the recent article in Der Spiegel in which the progressives flatly state that they have been definitively defeated. Germany has decisively turned against immigration. In fact muslim emmigration now exceeds muslim immigration. The population of Germany has spoken and immigration has been choked off, probably forever.

FROM THE ARTICLE:It is absurd that for years Germany has steadfastly ignored all the warning signals and refused to become a country of immigrants -- with the result that it is now de facto a country of net emigration. For many years, an annual average of 250,000 people came across the border. According to official statistics, however, since 2008 more people have been leaving the land of poets, thinkers and engineers than have been arriving. This puts Germany in a league apart -- along with Japan -- among the world's highly-developed rich industrialized nations.END OF QUOTE FROM ARTICLE

So to put it simply, the majority of the "white survivalist" political program has been embraced by the German people, and the german politicians are desperately following the will of the people, both in word and in deed. Yet we seldom hear the white survivalists that post here praise the German people or the German government. We hear very little from white survivalists in the US who plan to move to Germany.

Indeed, as you have shown Steve through your articles on assortive mating, as non whites move in to a neighborhood it is inevitable that the races will intermarry. Today's white survivalists here in America are almost certain to have grand children and great grandchildren than are part non white.

The white survivalists can insure that their grandchildren and great grandchildren are 100% genetically white by moving to Germany.

But the white survivalists would rather come to this blog and complain rather than move to Germany

The most religious segment of the population in the U.S. is the white working class--average IQ around 93 or 94. These people are not stupid, and regression to the mean implies that their children will do all right in America, but I don't see the trend as eugenic--only not as bad is it would be otherwise.

Don't get me wrong. I am in favor of anything that boosts white fertility. But I think economic incentives would work better. We need a tax system more like the one we had in the 1950's--no marriage penalty and a large deduction for dependent children relative to average income. A voucher system for education would also be helpful. In areas where NAM's have wreaked the public schools, middle-class parents cannot afford to keep more than one or two children in private schools. The Republicans talk a good game about family values, but they have never done anything to strengthen the family. They have mostly gone along with the social policies which are destroying the American family. It is time that social conservatives told the Republicans to put their money where their mouth is.

Ha, is that type still around? Haven't bothered watching most movies since they started sucking, but last time I remember that was the safe-cracker from Die Hard and the inventor of the Terminator chip from T2."

Don't forget Samuel L. Jackson's character in "Jurassic Park". Cause, after all, who better fits the mental image that most people have of a computer nerd than Samuel L. Jackson. He's not just a computer genius, he's a motherf**kin' computer genius, motherf**ker!

On this same topic, I recently saw some of "Fight Club". I only saw it once, on video, several years ago. It's a good movie - even a thoughtful movie - though one that was written by and for a younger generation than my own. I noticed however that it was almost entirely lacking in any kind of diversity. Tyler Durden's army seemed to be exclusively white. Such a thing really seems noteworthy nowadays, and I have to wonder if it was intentional on the part of the director.

"Redneck bigots don't control Hollywood. Hollywood is controlled by Jews. This so-called liberal Hollywood makes hate-movies against Muslims(300, Iron Man, Kingdom, the Terrorist, etc), hate movies agaisnt Asians(Rising Sun, remake of Red Dawn),and hate movies against whites(Machete and tons of others). Who are liberal Jews to be lecturing to us about morals?"

Say what?! "The 300" took place about 1,000 years before Muhammad was born, so hard to see how it was a "hate-movie" against Muslims. In "Iron Man" the villain is the bald-headed Jeff Bridges and the moral hero, who saves Downey's life, is a Muslim. If you want to rant against Jews, don't pin your sad little notions on Hollywood hypocrisy, a dead horse if ever there was one.

Its standard operating procedure for various agitators to cry racism in Hollywood, and then get a payoff to go away. Deadline Hollywood is filled with it, presumably aiming to get a payoff like Jessie Jackson.

The Netflix model is killing Hollywood. Most of their money came from DVD sales and rentals, that is pretty much dead now. Which means Hollywood can only make money by cutting costs (no more Oscar bait movies that don't make money) and increasing revenues (by making more massively popular movies).

Overseas audiences don't care much for Black leads, and even that revenue base is eroding in the face of constant piracy and massive inflation in developed nations (Brazil, China, India, all face huge price increases on stressed, marginal earning populations). This means a reliance on the US/Canadian audience with big hits making big money as the huge availability of past movies/TV shows competes against new stuff. I can rent say, "Bullit" from Netflix which is better than the latest Fast and Furious movie.

TV has tried the "diversity" route -- Undercovers failed, so too Kevin Hill on UPN, etc. They'll be at it again since TV does not really care at this point about profitability as much as PC/Diversity [see Maxine Waters berating NBC for lack of Black lead shows.] The ability of Obama (currently a lock to get re-elected against the current GOP candidates) to dole out favors or punish enemies drives a lot of that.

It seems intuitive that 'SWPL' or aspirational blacks would be pleased to watch white films, while their plebian brothers would prefer black-identity action fodder. Instead it seems to be the elite who want racial sustenance, while the masses are happy to watch Bruce Willis.

Perhaps if the color of the Oscar figurine were changed to a darker hue then hopefully that could be seen as a symbolic gesture and quiet the critics. Perhaps a name change would also help, such as calling it the "Latasha Award", or something along those lines. Hollyweird certainly needs to demonstrate a little more sensitivity in these trying times.

One of the trouble with many movies starring an African-American is that, as a white, I suspect that it's going to be one of those movies that intends to make me feel guilty. I don't go to the movies to be made to feel guilty.

"Boyz n the Hood" and "Menace II Society," both of which were made by black film makers ("frauteurs", in fact), were fairly interesting, but Hollywood is reluctant to focus on black thuggery, and entirely unwilling to expose the lies and hypocrisy of race relations in America, one of the great stories waiting to be told. What a great story could be told about the Duke rape case or the firefighter's case in New Haven, but since they don't fit the template of "heroic, put-upon blacks" versus "conniving, unworthy whites," they can't be told. When art is forbidden to reflect reality, there's a limit to its appeal.

By the way, isn't it just too precious that Obama claims that the first movie he took Michelle to see was "Do the Right Thing"? I wouldn't be surprised if they actually went to see "Sleepless in Seattle," but he figured that that didn't fit his narrative.

"But the white survivalists would rather come to this blog and complain rather than move to Germany"

That was quite the rant.

Ah, Germany. It's a good central European country but perhaps not the best landscape & climate-wise. Also, when you consider the cost of living compared to Eastern Europe along with the value of the Euro compared to the dollar, the idea of sending economically & socially marginalized survivalists to Germany is ludicrous. I really don't know how Germans manage to be restrictive wrt immigration. But there does seem to be an underlying indoctrination program, hence the prohibition on home schooling. Aye, they may have come up with some kind of double speak that actually allows them to survive as a race but I don't think that extends to any other whites who don't somehow know the system and avoid rousing the interest of multicult censors. What you term "survivalists" would only draw attention to white ethnocentricism which would be anathema to those strategies that have allowed the Germans to survive as a people.

Ha, is that type still around? Haven't bothered watching most movies since they started sucking, but last time I remember that was the safe-cracker from Die Hard and the inventor of the Terminator chip from T2.

Its an industry standard in children's TV. Though in one case at least, Billy & Mandy Im pretty sure its ironic. Billy & Mandy's friend Irwin being the black geek in question.

Think about it, the White Survivalists that incessantly complain about how unpopular their views are in the USA, how it is impossible for White Survivalists to win elective office have the opportunity to move to any number of nearly all white countries, but instead of moving they stay here and complain.

1) Whites built the America that others including non-whites want to live in, so why arent they allowed to complain?

2) Whites do emigrate to various European countries. It would be interesting to know whether the number of white Americans moving to Europe is greater in absolute and/or relative terms than the number of black Americans moving to Africa.

Frankly, it seems like a random fluctuation and an absurd thing to worry about (but that's obvious).

I guess another way of looking at it might be that our culture just isn't that interested in Black people at the moment. There aren't any inspiring stories about Black accomplishment about at the moment, race relations isn't a huge issue and in any case has more of a Hispanic/non-Black locus and things like the Wire and Precious have said pretty much everything of interest to the mainstream there is to say there, and there aren't any fresh or interesting cultural movements by Black people that are that inspiring or interesting.

As for TV, I think True Blood has a lot of Black people in it? I'm not up to date with TV drama.

Apart from the fact that this nearly century-old article is grossly out of date in terms of scholarship on Roman history (e.g., Keith Bradley's work on demographics and Solin's on the significance of Greek nomenclature in Roman inscriptions), the work is obviously much influenced by the concerns in the early-twentieth-century about European immigration. Note the following:

"One after another of the emperors gained popularity with the rabble by erecting a shrine to some foreign Baal, or a statue to Isis in his chapel, in much the same way that our cities are lining their park drives with tributes to Garibaldi, Pulaski, and who knows what -vitch."

"Who knows what -vich"! Gee, imagine all those Italians and slavs messing up the good old USA. How will the Republic ever survive?

Anonymous:regarding the queen of England as a black... well the BBC had a Robin Hood series with a black Friar Tuck, one who knew an oriental martial art at that. Then when it was canceled for lack of interest they said 'see no one likes this outdated rubbish, more multiculti programming is what's needed'.

Rachelle:For that matter, I am much less inclined to go to a movie with the obligatory blacks in it. I guess I am just sick of every month of the year being 'Black History Month.'

They can decorate their movies with blacks, but I won't go to them. Tired of it.

There's a new-ish series on the SciFi [-er- "SyFy"] channel now, called "Merlin", which features a negress acting the part of Guinevere.

Sorry, but I just can't wrap my head around that one - it makes for more than a little difficulty in achieving the ol' "Suspension of Disbelief".

Don't forget Samuel L. Jackson's character in "Jurassic Park". Cause, after all, who better fits the mental image that most people have of a computer nerd than Samuel L. Jackson. He's not just a computer genius, he's a motherf**kin' computer genius, motherf**ker!

Actually, I thought Jackson was pretty well cast in that role. If you recall, the real stereotypical hacker nerd was the Nedry character, played perfectly by Wayne Knight. Jackson's Ray Arnold character was clearly no genius, more of a plodder type. All of the serious coding was done by the socially misfit white guy Nedry, while Arnold basically pushed the buttons like he was told. When Nedry's character disappears, Arnold is completely incapable of deciphering Nedry's handiwork. The only solution he is capable of coming up with is to shut down the entire system - essentially one big Ctrl+Alt+Delete. About what you would expect from an affirmative action hire. That and getting himself eaten.

The real Hollywood howler is that Arnold's meager computing skills are matched, perhaps even surpassed, by Hammond's 12-year-old granddaughter. Yeah, THAT happens in real life all the time. . .

"The most religious segment of the population in the U.S. is the white working class--average IQ around 93 or 94. These people are not stupid, and regression to the mean implies that their children will do all right in America, but I don't see the trend as eugenic--only not as bad is it would be otherwise."

Just because the white working class is relatively more religious on average than the middle/upper classes, doesn't necessarily mean that devout religious whites are predominantly working class. Or that even if they were working class, that they have the same average IQs of other whites at the same income levels. Amish for example could be considered quite poor or working class, but their average IQs are estimated around 100 rather than 94.

Years ago, blacks in movies never bothered me but now I find if there is a black in the ad, I subconciously reject the movie as something I don't want to watch. The roles they play are so predictible. I need not go into it. Everyone is aware what I am talking about.

The end result is that somehow a white will be demeaned when a black appears in a movie and I am not willing to sit through that any longer.

Possibly, Anonymous. Do you live in Columbus, GA? Are you kin to the Anonymous's that live just off of N. Elm St., in the "balance due" area? They are 2nd cousins of our babysitter's husband, Jared Anonymous. Small world, ain't it?

OT. Steve, have you read this latest NY Times article about the was a founder of the Achievement Gap Initiative?

"He is not as famous as John Ogbu, the late African-born Berkeley professor who argued that the gap could be explained by the cultural behavior of African-Americans, like mocking hard-working classmates for “acting white.”

Nor is he as famous as Charles Murray, co-author of “The Bell Curve,” who suggested that the achievement gap is explained by inherited low intelligence."

"He is not as famous as John Ogbu, the late African-born Berkeley professor who argued that the gap could be explained by the cultural behavior of African-Americans, like mocking hard-working classmates for “acting white.”

Im pretty sure Ive mused on this before. Have the great minds who come up with these ideas hammered out a unified theory which reconciles fear of "Acting White" with "Stereotype Threat"?

On the one hand black students fear achieving acdemically (AW) but they also fear challenges and fall short academically for that reason(ST).

So we are being asked to think they fail due to fear of ostracism from their peer group but somehow at the same time fear to do well in case they fail to meet the expectations of wider, whiter society.

How does that work? How can both be true?

One could argue that AW is a defence, a justification, bravado to cover up the real problem, which is ST.

This would mean that blacks real fear is of failure to conform to white ideals rather than that of their black peers.

I really dont know, Ive just got a gut feeling that both AW and ST cannot be true together at the same time in the same place. In which case I would like one of these academic theorists to talk me through how it all works.

"how it is impossible for White Survivalists to win elective office have the opportunity to move to any number of nearly all white countries, but instead of moving they stay here and complain. "

I'm not (yet) a white survivalist but I'm curious if you can name one country, let alone many, where a white person with American ancestry going back to the 18th century and before can move to and become a citizen? I think Austria will let you buy in for about $3M.

"But what do you mean when you say "The Hollywood future will be jews who've bred themselves to look anglo""

Ethnic nepotism taken to the nth degree. People who have retained jewish identity despite various episodes of marrying out in their heritage which has led to them acquiring anglo looks.

Obviously if/when white Americans become a minority this could eventually become a disadvantage and the new audience may want to see more hispanic looking actors. The process would then repeat and eventually you'd have both anglo looking Nathalie Porters and hispanic looking Nathalie Porters but both identifying as jewish.

I'm not saying it's neccessarily conscious or anything. More a consequence of powerful men in Hollywood getting to have children with extremely attractive women from the ethnic groups cinema goers most want to look at, which is then combined with ethnic nepotism towards the offspring.

I think True Blood has a lot of Black people in it? I'm not up to date with TV drama.

There are two prominent black characters, Terra and Lafayette. Shockingly, they aren't deracinated: they are culturally black. For a show about vampires, there it is very not-Hollywood. The main character is unhesitatingly Christian. Not the standard tv or movie Christian who has constant crises of faith.

I'm sure many paleos won't like it, race mixing, magic, etc. I think the woman who wrote the books the show is based on is a liberal, but she's a Southern liberal who actually likes the South.

As far as I could tell, these liberal handwringers didn't mention hispanics once. They are a larger share of the population than blacks and even less represented in movies. Ipso facto that means even greater racism against them but the NYT ignored them entirely. My guess is the racism against them is so bad it extends even to Dargis, Scott, and their editors at the New York Times.

(Asians are now big enough to start demanding clear representation too, yet they seem to be about as shut out as hispanics, maybe more.)

Do you ever see articles like this about the Grammys? Hispanics and Asians are terribly underrepresented there too, yet the large share of blacks seems to just persuade the bien pensants that the music industry is hugely diverse, like the NBA and NFL, and just congratulate themselves on their lack of racism.

Many Sailer readers actively dislike anything with black people in it .... quelle surprise!

As an opera fan, colorblind casting doesn't really bother me as long as its presented as colorblind casting, as in Chicago, and not retconning Norse Gods as African (don't know if that's what the Thor movie is doing or not but it seems like a bad idea regardless).

"Im pretty sure Ive mused on this before. Have the great minds who come up with these ideas hammered out a unified theory which reconciles fear of "Acting White" with "Stereotype Threat"?

On the one hand black students fear achieving acdemically (AW) but they also fear challenges and fall short academically for that reason(ST)."

-You're right that these two would contradict each other if interpreted the way most liberal professors and activists like to interpret them. But what's a little contradiction to them when their entire diversipod platform is built on omissions, half-truths, fraud, and outright lies?

I really dont know, Ive just got a gut feeling that both AW and ST cannot be true together at the same time in the same place. In which case I would like one of these academic theorists to talk me through how it all works."

You're a racist. That's how it all works. You are an inveterate racist, no matter what you or anyone else does.

>the BBC had a Robin Hood series with a black Friar Tuck[...]Then when it was canceled for lack of interest they said 'see no one likes this outdated rubbish, more multiculti programming is what's needed'<

Same thing with animated fairy tales. After the lackluster performance of Disney's first-evah black princess, the "thinking" in Hollywood was: fairy tales are no longer popular with audiences. Then came Tangled.

It's been done, in a Dr. Who episode on a space whale in the year 5000.,question where is the imputeous for this coming from? It seems so pervasive. PC is everywhere. if it were more overt, I would imagine there would be more evidence, but it is hardly a spontaneous movement- are there really 'diversity police' going around? Does someone tell the writing staff of the Dr. Who to put this crap in (or Robin Hood, for that matter)

I just stopped reading a blog because the author, a. did not wish a merry christmas, but a vague 'holiday season' then did a blatant 'chinese new year, year of the rabbit' post (what is the obsession with chinese new year? Why is this 'allowed' in the west. THen just yesterday, he had a post where he used "BCE" - I really really really hate that - especially since its origins are in Jewish bigotry.. that was the last straw for me.

Obviously if/when white Americans become a minority this could eventually become a disadvantage and the new audience may want to see more hispanic looking actors.if bollywood is indicator, "the people" don't want to see people that look like them

True Blood has a gay black man, who is also a line chef and drug dealer. He has a relationship with a Hispanic homosexual. Though certainly beating the feminist drum, TB does not beat the PC drum too hard. It actually presents southern black culture fairly well.

Obviously if/when white Americans become a minority this could eventually become a disadvantage and the new audience may want to see more hispanic looking actors.

Even if the audience wants to see more hispanic looking actors, hispanics in general have to become more interesting if the movies are to be believable. Of course it would also help if they were clever enough to be on the creative and technical ends of movie making. I don't see the movie business getting brown for a while. If hispanics haven't produce a boxing movie as good "The Fighter" by now, I doubt we'll ever see an hispanic version of "The Social Network."

"What is it with our intelligentsia, or our chattering class if you prefer, this obsession with blacks? That's a straight question. I really don't get it. Thoughts?"

Same as the Victorian's* obsession with sex. If you can't think something away consciously, you deny its existence aloud, and obsess about it in private. You turn matters of logistics into moral issues (i.e., transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes becomes "White Slavery"**; blacks winning too few Oscars becomes "discrimination"). You start teaching children to believe literally in fig-leaf-style denials of reality (children really are brought by storks; blacks and whites really do think similarly).

It was noticible that that Scotland and England had their own colony ships. I got the feeling we were supposed to think of the Scots & English as distinct ethnicities but of course the English can be replaced with blacks et al.

If thats true why the emphasis on Scottish identity? If English identity can be be devalued so easily, Scottish/English differences become trivial in that context.

Bollywood uses a lot of makeup and lighting to artificially lighten up the complexions of the stars. They're toward the lighter end of Indian, but they look phenotypically Indian even without their makeup.

Whoopi Goldberg slammed A. O. Scott's article on The View for being disrespectful. Ha Ha. What an appropriate faith for Mr. Scott of the New York Times. It's every SWPL nightmare to be called out by a black person for being direspectful.

Many Sailer readers actively dislike anything with black people in it .... quelle surprise!

As an opera fan, colorblind casting doesn't really bother me as long as its presented as colorblind casting, as in Chicago, and not retconning Norse Gods as African (don't know if that's what the Thor movie is doing or not but it seems like a bad idea regardless)."

I don't object to color-blind casting, if it is in the service of putting a good actor in the part. Morgan Freeman in "Unforgiven" for example. He wasn't playing a black guy (if he were, you'd think someone in an old western town would have remarked on it) - he was just playing an ex-bandit named Ned. Or Lawrence Fishburne in "21" - whose role was the only good part of an otherwise lousy movie. He played Othello in one movie, which was a non-colorblind role, but I'd pay to see him in MacBeth playing the cursed scottish thane, or in Julius Caesar playing Marc Antony - Shakespeare already demands a certain suspension of disbelief, so it is largely irrelevant what the actor looks like.

Ashkenazis don't look anglo apart from a few exceptions like Kirk Douglas. And certainly not at the film star level of looks. That's the point. Extending their ethnic nepotism to cover all the acting roles as well (as is increasingly becoming the case) required some selective breeding.

ricpic"What is it with our intelligentsia, or our chattering class if you prefer, this obsession with blacks? That's a straight question. I really don't get it. Thoughts?"

It's a disguised way of attacking white people that a lot of white people fell for. If they had any genuine concern for black people there'd be more black writers in Hollywood (and hence more black roles) and not just a few actors.

"If thats true why the emphasis on Scottish identity? If English identity can be be devalued so easily, Scottish/English differences become trivial in that context."

Divide and rule. Notice the names in Hollywood films: celtic good, anglo bad. This will change if/when white people become a minority.

"As surprising as it may sound, blacks were fairly common in the Old West. So no one would've commented on Morgan Freeman being black in Unforgiven."

This is true, I've read accounts that 20-25% of all old west cowboys were escaped slaves. So the sight of Morgan Freeman in the old west would not have raised an eyebrow. Where Eastwood took extreme creative license however, was when Morgan Freeman was cavorting with white whores in the whorehouse. That stretches the realm of belief.

"Ashkenazis don't look anglo apart from a few exceptions like Kirk Douglas. And certainly not at the film star level of looks."

Absurd. There were many actors of full Jewish background and disguised names. Lauren Bacall springs to mind. Whatever "specialness" there was about their type, it didn't keep quite a few of them from playing non-Jews. Good grief. They were all over the big screen and you never even knew it? Europe too. Why do you think there were rumors that Cary Grant was Jewish (apparently untrue.) Because he so "looked" it?While I can't spend too much time seeking them out, I've always been surprised at the celebrities and actors identified as Jewish, dating the early 20th century. Their looks were not all THAT different.

look phenotypically IndianToo bad there is no phenotypical indian hint. Hindi is closer, linguistically, to French than it is to Tamil - in fact they are as different as Chinese and Greek. Same goes w/ the people, but more so.

Oscar race aside, blacks are way overrepresented in the movies. Also, biggest stars usually don't get nominated, let alone win. George Lucas didn't get nominated for best director for Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Steve McQueen never won. And many big name stars win only after a long long career. John Wayne finally won in 69. Newman finally won in 85. So, the fact that blacks didn't get nominated this yr means they've taken on bigger flashier roles in Hollywood that usually don't get the Oscar nod.

No. Netflix may very well become Hollywood. HBO originally only distributed Hollywood movies. Then it began making its own features. Showtime followed and now Starz has also gone into the movie making business. All of these former media distributors are vying to be players in the "New Hollywood". If Netflix survives, it will surely do the same.

Forty years ago the movies were racy - naughty words and lots of titties. All that has changed now. Regular theatrical releases today generally look like old Disney movies. The spicy flicks are shown on cable TV late at night. I expect that this low hanging fruit will be exploited by Netflix with an adult themed original series.

Netflix is ham strung by the studios now over licensing. They have to abide by the rules that the studios set. They are likely to cut that Gordian Knot by hiring some actors and writers so as to make their own product. I believe there are some unemployed actors available.

"Too bad there is no phenotypical indian hint. Hindi is closer, linguistically, to French than it is to Tamil - in fact they are as different as Chinese and Greek."

Hindi shares a closer ancestral or genetic relationship with French than it does with Tamil, but to say that Hindi and Tamil are as different as Chinese and Greek is a gormless exaggeration. They form part of a linguistic union due to centuries of close geographic proximity and cultural interaction, sharing phonetic characteristics and a large body of vocabulary.

Hindi shares a closer ancestral or genetic relationship with French than it does with Tamil, but to say that Hindi and Tamil are as different as Chinese and Greek is a gormless exaggeration. They form part of a linguistic union due to centuries of close geographic proximity and cultural interaction, sharing phonetic characteristics and a large body of vocabulary.No, they don't Hindi is imposed on by indian 'nationalist' so Tamil speakers must know it to get ahead in government, etc. but Hindi (northern) speakers can't read or understand a word. THey adapted some, like the word for elephant since they had no word for elephant, just like the English did (khaki, bungalo, etc)

I discovered Steve's writing only a few months ago. After about 3 or 4 months or so of reading him (and now read Charles Murray as well) and having been thoroughly impressed by their biting commentary and ability to distill a whole lot of empirical observations down to a few concise sentences, it has occurred to me after reading this piece that perhaps the reason why the NYT is on the decline is because many of their editorials are written by people who really aren't as smart as they think they are. I used to think the lure of political correctness was just soooo strong. Now, I think it's strong only because it's the default framework from which to analyze our social world in the absence of the hard work and intelligence required to move past it and see real substance.

Ha, is that type still around? Haven't bothered watching most movies since they started sucking, but last time I remember that was the safe-cracker from Die Hard and the inventor of the Terminator chip from T2.

"In Rocky 3, the bad guy was Clubber Lang (Mr. T). You probably can't make a movie like that anymore."

I was thinking the same thing while re-watching the original Conan The Barbarian. James Earl Jones was out-of-his-mind-awesome as Thulsa Doom. I'd wager that PC exacerbates the dearth of black actors at the Academy Awards. "Lead Villain" is still a great role, and a fantastic opportunity to showcase one's acting chops. The last black villain in a major motion picture I can even think of was Denzell in "Training Day". IIRC, he won an Oscar for that.

You know, Jayne Mansfield birthed five children and had a very high IQ.(She did not have enormous acting talent and did have a squeaky voice, unlike the breathy Novak and MM). I don't think she was raised religious.

Several modern Hollywood actresses who are not religious or conservative have cranked a few out too. Susan Sizequeen Sarandon had four, I think. Annette Bening had four too.

Women are into FASHION. If it's fashionable to birth they will birth. Sterilize (voluntary but persuasively) low IQ and generally skanky women and those who are unbirthworthy-i.e. who can not carry and birth naturally, i.e., narrow hips, et al-and the smart birthworthy ones will all want two or three.

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